'Talentless Nana' tells the story of superpowered children on an isolated island, amongst whom a serial killer is hiding. Large parts of the story are told from the killer's perspective, others from the self-declared teenage detective trying to solve the murders.
This cat-and-mouse game reminded me of a child-friendly version of Death Note, though it certainly requires more suspension of disbelief. Both the killer and the detective regularly make Sherlock-Holmes-like deductions, only that the writers certainly aren't as talented at coming up with reasonable schemes as Doyle. This is further hampered by the young target audience: all the clever schemes must remain understandable to kids, so the script heavily relies on everyone being oblivious and multi-step plans going perfectly right.
This isn't a huge issue, as long as you keep in mind that this is not Breaking Bad but a show aimed at young teens. Just like we shouldn't complain about violations of physics when watching Star Wars, we should forgive 'Talentless Nana' its own take on logical thinking.
What bothered me far more is that the series declined as it went along, ending with a finale that was neither fish nor fowl. In the first few episodes the killer is a deeply morally ambigious character, killing fellow teenagers without remorse. Yet as the show progresses, those victims suddenly become monsters themselves, the killer suddenly is quite heroic, and the overall theme of the show turns from something unique into something widely generic. I found the ending particularly disappointing: it leaves all the loose ends untied, dissatisfying the viewers that liked the first half of the season, while also compromising the more wholesome themes of the second half. Basically, the writers tried to go for the best of both worlds yet ended up with the worst.
Nevertheless, 'Talentless Nana' was enjoyable and certainly had its moments. Ultimately, though, it's just not all that memorable, its uniqueness sacrificed for no good reason.
From a technical standpoint the show is good, with lovely animations and a good art style. The English dub is also pretty great.
I hope the writers will continue with similar concepts in the future. Perhaps then they'll actually stick to their themes. I certainly would enjoy watching something like that!
